Changes in the Gendered Division of Labor in Contemporary China
讲座简介
Division of labor was traditionally gendered in China, with men doing more market work while women doing more domestic work. Whether, and if so, how the division of labor has changed in Contemporary China needs to be further investigated. Given the broad scope of either topic (domestic work in the private sphere vs. market work in the public sphere), though I intend to describe changes in each sphere, in this talk, I focus on changes in housework time and market earnings instead.Specifically, using data from the 2004–2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), I attempt to answer three research questions: (1) What are the trends of the gender gap in housework time?; (2) What are the trends of the gender differentials in market earnings?; and (3) What is the interrelationship between housework time and market earnings? Is this relationship unidirectional, in a way that market earnings affect housework time or the other way around, or is this relationship bidirectional?The first question focuses on domestic work, the second question focuses on market work, and the third question focuses on the nexus between the two. Noting the identification problem in the APC research, in answering the former two questions, close attention will be paid to the role of aging and cohort replacement effect (other than the period changes) in shaping Chinese adults’ housework time and market earnings. If time permits, I will also talk about how the magnitude of micro-level explanations in domestic work varies by cohort groups and how urbanization affects women’s domestic work.
